Federal Grand Jury indicts all four Minneapolis police officers
By Globe Times Staff
A federal grand jury in Minneapolis today indicted Derek Chauvin and three other former Minneapolis police officers, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao for violating George Floyd’s civil rights.
The federal panel found first that Chauvin’s kneeling on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes last May constituted a direct violation of his right to be free from both unreasonable seizure and excessive force.
The grand jury then cited officers Kueng and Thao for “willfully” failing to intervene when they saw Chauvin was using excessive force, a further violation of Floyd’s civil rights which led to his injury and death.
All four of the officers were further indicted for acting with deliberate indifference to Floyd’s serious medical needs and failing to aid him – again leading to his injury and death.
In the case of Chauvin, the grand jury considered not only his barbarous treatment of Floyd but also, according to the Axios news service, that officer s brutality when arresting a teenage boy in 2017.
Chauvin has already been convicted of murder and manslaughter last month. The civil rights indictment comes into play should Chauvin’s conviction be overturned on appeal. Axios noted that federal officials reportedly had planned to arrest Chauvin at the courthouse if the case ended in a mistrial or not guilty verdict, per the Star Tribune.
The civil rights indictments on the other three officers are relevant if they avoid conviction for aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter in the Minneapolis trial coming up this August.
(Information for this article was taken from today’s Axios news release by Shawna Chen).
